I woke up this morning half expecting faces at my porthole again, but instead was an unobstructed view of the picturesque village of Galaiwavo, its reflection shimmering in the still water. This area was a special place for Michael, as he had visited here once before 6 years ago and some of the men still remembered him from that time. It was because of this that the ‘Sing sing’ was arranged for last night.

The ‘Sing sing’ turned out to be awesome, just after dark with a new moon laying a trail across the sea, canoes started to drift over to us and pretty soon there was a raft of canoes drawn up around the stern of STARSHIP full of both children and adults; there to share their culture with us.

To begin with we shared something with them. We put a TV on the aft deck and played a ‘sing sing’ to them Michael had filmed at their village on his last visit. We followed this up with some underwater footage taken during STARSHIP’s voyage and they were absolutely fascinated; staring up at the screen like we would stare at a spacecraft. When you think about it, for them it would be a similar experience; most of them probably never having seen ‘moving pictures’ before. You have to wonder what impression stays with them when we leave; do they think our lifestyle is something to emulate, or just that we are ‘aliens’ to marvel at while we are around and to forget when we are gone?

The school day begins.

As a result of the ‘Sing sing’ we had been invited to the local school to see the children begin their morning classes, so today it was a quick breakfast and into the tender to go ashore. We landed in a mangrove area, and made our way along a stony walkway through the swamp, and into coconut groves, past small clusters of huts.

Raundle, my friend from yesterday, was acting as one of our ‘guides’, and on the way I spoke to him some more about local life. I learnt that the huts we were passing on the track to the school took around 1-3 years to construct depending on their size and complexity; and lasted about 6 years. I guess the heavy rain and high humidity here is hard on everything. He also told me how they hunt wild pigs with their small dogs and spears in the hills behind the villages, and was quite taken with the idea that we also hunt wild pigs in New Zealand. I now have an invitation to hunt with him if we return to Galaiwavo!

After 5 or 10 minutes we emerged from the forest into a large park-like area with short grass interspersed with large trees, a beautiful setting for the school. I was amazed to find out from Raundle that the kids themselves kept the grass short using long ‘grass knives’, a little like machetes. There must have been a total of 3 or 4 acres of this ‘lawn’ …never again will I think of mowing the lawn back home using a lawnmower as a chore!

The school itself, known as Killia Community School, was comparatively large; having about six big huts as classrooms, and nicely laid out grounds with beaten paths lined by small hedges. The children, all 207 of them, were very well behaved, and filed into their classrooms, sat down quietly, said a prayer, then sang their national anthem beautifully. The six classrooms corresponded to grades 1-6, ages 7-15 years old, but there were currently only 4 teachers who had to switch between classes.

The staff and pupils of Killia Community School.

Children from five different villages attended Killia School, as well as kids from small ‘family villages’ around the area. Some even come from highland villages an hour and a half’s run away! Although Keke is the local language of the village of Galaiwavo, and Bwaidoga the main language of the region, I was impressed to discover that the children learn five Papuan languages as well as English in school ...makes me feel stupid, no wonder they call us ‘Dim-dims’!

Enjoy the singing of Killia Community School in mp3 format. Just click on the STARSHIP mp3 file title ... a free mp3 player is available from www.winamp.com

Some of the older men of these villages are so focused on the welfare of their people it is humbling, they do everything they can to ensure the kids get good schooling. However it was encouraging to find out that receiving a ‘conventional’ education did not encourage the children to leave the village in preference for big towns like Alotau or Port Moresby.

Before we left the school we gave the headmaster a stack of exercise books, pencils and crayons for the school to help out a bit, as it isn’t easy to obtain supplies in the more isolated villages of PNG.

Back onboard STARSHIP Trevor was busy dismantling one of the outboards from STARTENDER, as yesterday it had been giving problems changing between forward and reverse gear. We may have to get parts air-freighted out to us so Trevor can repair the problem properly, illustrating yet again how vulnerable we are not being able to just ‘go down the road’ to get things fixed.

Taking leave of Galaiwavo at lunchtime, we steamed the 5 hours to Lawadi on a pleasantly calm sea. Not very far out in beautifully blue water, we came across a pod of Pilot whales accompanied by several Bottlenose dolphins. They seemed to be lazing on the surface in a receptive mood, so we slipped in on snorkel and swam with them for a while. As soon as our heads were underwater we could hear their whistles and clicks seemingly from every direction at once and could watch them shooting along below us like chubby torpedoes!

After this little interlude the crew each found things to do to while away the next few hours of passage and I chatted with Enrico about his home in Germany and his past few months on the boat. It has been nearly 7 months for him, and he is missing his friends and family a little, so may take a few weeks ‘off’ to go home and ‘catch up’.

The remarkable mantis shrimp.

Well its now 7.30pm and we have just come back from a dusk dive at Lawadi. The visibility was quite good, and it was an interesting time of day to dive, with a ‘change-over’ taking place between the daytime and the night-time species. Michael and James dived together and saw a couple of the big orange Mantis shrimps at the entrance to their holes. Also very interesting was an Anemone hermit crab with a portion of its shell missing, leaving its abdomen exposed. I wonder whether a crab without the protection of the anemones would still choose a shell with a hole in it? I began my own dive at 20m/60ft looking out for a Mimic octopus, but not surprisingly I didn’t have any luck! However I did see several of the beautifully marked Twin-spot Lionfish, almost ‘glowing’ with rich orange and red-brown colours against which the black and white eyespots showed up sharply. You can see how effective this strategy of artificial ‘eyes’ could be in confusing a predator.

Anyway, dinner is over; we are about to do a second night dive and I must jump back into my wetsuit, so see you tomorrow,

Diver Dave.